Golden Ace passes Taunton test with flying colours

A trip to the Cheltenham Festival remains under consideration for Golden Ace after she maintained her unbeaten record over hurdles with a facile success at Taunton.

Runner-up to Dysart Enos in the Grade Two mares’ bumper at Aintree last spring, Jeremy Scott’s new stable star made a successful transition to the jumping game at Taunton early in the new year.

Saddled with a mandatory penalty on her return to the Somerset circuit for the Stables Business Park Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, Golden Ace was the 1-2 favourite to follow up under Lorcan Williams and was not hard pressed in the slightest to score by two and a quarter lengths from Linda Moon.

The winner is a 10-1 shot with Paddy Power for the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham on March 14 – and while Scott raised the final of the Herring Queen Mares’ Novices Hurdle Series at Kelso on April 6 as an alternative, she would be a worthy runner at the Festival.

“We were slightly concerned about the ground,” Scott told Racing TV. “It was soft ground last time over two-miles-three and over two miles on lovely, good ground I just wondered whether she’d have the toe for it, but she seemed to have every bit of the toe.

“She got a bit keen part way round, she seems to travel well and her jumping is good, but will need to slicken up if we’re going on to bigger targets.

“We’ve got some fairly lofty ambitions for her and I hope she lives up to them. That (Cheltenham) was certainly the plan if everything went well, having said that the final of this race is a fabulously rich race and you wouldn’t rule that out, actually.”